


A Union in Partition

by Walutahanga



Category: Superman (Reeveverse), Superman - All Media Types, Superman Returns (2006)
Genre: Backstory, Bittersweet Ending, Compromise, F/M, Identity Issues, Kryptonite
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-07
Updated: 2016-02-07
Packaged: 2018-05-18 19:07:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5939890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Walutahanga/pseuds/Walutahanga
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Daily Planet was not the first time Richard White and Clark Kent met. </p><p>(Not slash for a change).</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Union in Partition

“We need to talk, Kal.”

Richard speaks the words into the cold night air and sits down to wait. It’s nearly half an hour before he feels the soft puff of air that heralds Kal’s arrival.

“Richard.” Kal’s voice is wary. Things had been different between them five years ago, when they were making their plans. Back then they’d had a single united goal then and clear roles to play. Now with Kal’s return, matters are murkier.

This close, though, Richard can see the weary pallor of Kal’s face, and his resolve softens.

“Long night?” He says.

“Yes.” Kal drifts to the roof, but doesn’t touch down, floating an inch or two above it. It’s typical of Kal’s interactions with the world; approaching, but never quite connecting.

 _And whose fault is that?_ Richard chastises himself. He is as much at fault for Kal’s state as Kal himself.

“You were in Jason’s room the other night.”

Guilt crosses Kal’s face, followed by defensive anger. Emotions that passed so quickly they’d have been unnoticeable to most people.

“Yes. I was.”

“We talked about this. We agreed.”

“Yes.” Kal looks away unhappily. It’s a Clark-like gesture, utterly unlike Superman. “I know. I just needed to see him. Just once.”

“Just once could be too much. Lois already suspects.”

She watches Jason. No more than she used to do, but there’s a different fear lurking in her eyes this time. She’ll jump up and hug him for no reason, or tell him to be careful, be careful with that. Except it’s not the world around Jason she fears now, but Jason in the world. A subtle distinction, but one Richard understands all too well. 

She watches Richard too these days, like she’s afraid he’ll disappear. She makes an extra effort to show how much she loves him, and he knows what she’s thinking, what she’s scared of, but can’t reassure her without exposing himself and Kal, and admitting what they did.

“You can see him,” Richard says. “I’m not saying otherwise. But as Clark. If Superman shows too much interest, Lois will start digging.”

And once she starts digging, she’ll never stop. It’s part of why they love her so.

“I’ll be more discrete,” Kal says. It sounds like a promise, but Richard knows it is not. He also knows it’s all he’s getting.

“How’s Martha?” He asks, changing the subject.

“Good. She won a prize for her pie last week.”

He sighs wistfully. “Ma’s apple pie.”

Even though he got the better end of the deal, there are some things Richard misses. During the years that Kal was gone, Richard would find reasons to drop by Smallville, stopping by for a coffee or lunch. He’d glimpsed Martha Kent a few times; fleeting glimpses that didn’t assuage the desperate hunger inside him.

So he knows. He knows exactly how Kal feels and can’t condemn him.

* * *

_Five years ago, when Clark first heard about the remains of Kyrpton, he was in a bad place._

_He’d made his first tentative steps on a relationship with Lois, attaining his humanity for a precious, brief time before giving it up again. He could never be Lois’ physical equal, could never be her husband in the ways that they both yearned for._ _So he’d cut the bond between them, removing her memories, thinking that at least one of them should be spared the pain of separation._

_The loneliness had been overwhelming, and he’d attempted to assuage it with Lana. Sweet, insightful Lana who’d noticed his physical reticence but hadn’t pushed it. She’d asked:_

_“Clark, if I’m on the wrong track here, please tell me, and I don’t mean it as a criticism in any way… I’ve noticed you don’t seem very interested in the physical side of us.”_

_“Well, I, that is…” Clark had fiddled with his glasses. “… I suppose you could say I’m interested in you, but not in that.”_ _Which was due to his inability to safely indulge rather than true indifference to sex, but that was a conversation for another time, at a more committed stage in their relationship._

_Lana hadn’t flared up, hadn’t been insulted. She’d been a wonderful woman; better than he deserved._

_“Is it that you’re not interested in women,” she’d asked carefully. “Or that you’re not interested in anyone?”_

_“The second.”_

_“I see,” she said, and left it at that. She seemed content with kisses or hugs, and as it was the only form of contact he could safely indulge in, he made much of it. If she was ever frustrated, she didn’t show it._

_He could have made a good life with Lana and her son, except that Superman intruded on that as well. Having to leave at random times does not convince one’s significant other that you are as committed to the relationship as they are. He didn’t need sex to be with Lana, he just needed to be there for her, but even that he couldn’t manage. He couldn't connect either physically or emotionally._

_It wasn’t long after breaking up with Lana that Clark heard of Kyrpton being discovered. It seemed an escape, the promise of a future._

_Except he’d made a commitment to earth. He couldn’t both stay and go._

_Or could he?_

* * *

Lois is not an idiot, and she knows her son doesn’t make sense.

Until a few weeks ago, she’d utterly and completely believed that Jason was Richard’s son. The dates aligned, and though he looks more like her than Richard, there’s enough of a resemblance to make her certain. Then her son threw a piano across the room and she has no idea what to think.

For a start, she never had sex with Superman during the time Jason was conceived. In fact, calculating the rate of foetus development, she’d conceived three months _after_ Superman disappeared.

There are answers of course. Perhaps kryptonian biology means a longer gestation period. Maybe kryptonians don’t practise sexual reproduction at all, but some kind of touch-transferred instant impregnation. Maybe Superman did something and made her forget…but her mind shies away from that idea. He wouldn’t do that to her. He _wouldn’t_.

Richard seems quieter too. Watchful, and she dreads the day he works out that Jason is not his son and demands answers she doesn't have. She should tell him before it comes out on it’s own, but she can’t risk losing him.

Then one night she is woken by voices from the roof. Two voices she knows better than her own, hushed together.

“…if Superman shows too much interest, Lois will start digging.”

“I’ll be more discrete.”

Lois lies still, hoping for more, but they’ve moved to a different area of the roof, just out of hearing range.

Superman and Richard, the two men she loves most in the world, two men with nearly no reason to talk to one another. Keeping secrets.

* * *

 _Clark_ ' _s studies into black kryptonite were careful matter. The last time had been random, a dangerous schism across his psyche. This time had to be subtler. A surgeon’s incision rather than a brutal hack._ _It took months to work out a process that stood a good chance of working. Even so, it was desperation more than faith that made him take that step into the chamber and activate the black kryptonite._

 _He’d read a quote somewhere that birth hurt like death. Splitting felt like both._ _Something essential inside ripped and the person he was ended, and his last thought was a sense of guilty relief._

* * *

Lois tries to imagine what Richard and Superman could be hiding. It’s a knot she can’t unravel,, though at least a knot she could see how it tangles together. This is more like a rock, a smooth ungiving surface without the slightest hint of what lies within.

Perhaps Richard knows about Jason. But if he knew, why would he confront Superman and not her? His conduct hasn’t changed to her at all, except perhaps to be even kinder, like he’s trying to reassure her of something.

Finally she does what her teachers in university told her. Research. Find what links them together.

Her first thought is that they met through work, like she and Superman did. But Richard White never did any articles on Superman, never interviewed him, was never rescued by him, didn’t even work in the same newsrooms with people that did. Until the Daily Planet, there was no connection between them at all.

In fact, she’s hard pressed to find any record of Richard at all before he came to work for the Daily Planet five years ago. No articles, no photos on his old university or high school websites. It’s as if he popped into existence five years ago when he shook her hand and Perry said “Lois I’d like you to meet my nephew Richard White.’

Then she finds it. The answer.

* * *

 _It took a few minutes to adjust after the split. There was a sense of absence, like hole inside him. It didn’t hurt exactly, but it ached. It yearned._

_When he looked up, it was into his own eyes. A face subtly skewed from the one he saw in the mirror. Dark hair, pale skin, but slightly older. A fuller mouth that smiled easier, eyes subtly bigger, giving a more vulnerable look. More human._

_“Hello,” his other self said._

* * *

Lois waits until the next morning and goes into Perry’s office without announcing herself, as per usual.

“This had better be good, Lois,” Perry says, as usual. She closes the door and tosses the article on his desk. He leans forward to look at it, and his face goes grey.

“I’d like an answer, Perry.”

He sits back in his chair. He looks, for the first time to her eyes, old.

“Ask me a question, Lane, and I'll answer." 

“You told me Richard was your nephew.” Despite her best efforts her voice quivers with accusation. She points at the article she’d printed out last night, the one from twenty-five years ago. “But your nephew Richard White was killed in a car accident when he was five years old. So who the hell is that man I'm engaged to?" 

Perry, for once, has nothing to say. He turns away from her, toward the window, looking out over the city. He’s silent for almost half a minute.

“It seemed like destiny,” he says at last. “He needed an identity and I needed… My brother is dead, my wife divorced me, one of my sons is in jail, the other won’t talk to me. It seemed like we both got something we wanted.”

Lois finds herself waiting, like she does during an interview, letting them speak.

“I had the birth certificates and the contacts. I made a few calls and he stepped into my nephew’s life, like he’d always been there. Some days I’ll forget he wasn’t.”

“Who is he?” Lois asks.

“I don’t know.”

“You let him pose as your nephew and you don’t _know_?”

“A man came to me, someone I trusted above all others, and asked for a favor. I gave it to him.”

“Who – ” And then Lois gets it. A man Perry trusted above all others.

The man that had been talking to her fiancée in the middle of the night.

* * *

 _The last time black kryptonite popped up, the two sides of Superman’s personality had been physical mirror images. This time was different. One of them looked like a new person altogether._

_“Shorter too,” he said with no real heat. He was examining his reflection in the shiny crystal wall, touching his chin and tracing the line of his jaw. “I wonder why that is.”_

_“Perhaps you’re a less developed part of my psyche,” the taller one said. He still looked as he always had – maybe a little thinner, a little younger – and felt a vague dissatisfaction as he watched the other self examine his new face._

_“Or perhaps I’m the brains and you’re the brawn.” The shorter self flashed the taller one a grin. Teasing, without antagonism._

_“I don’t understand,” the taller one said. “You were supposed to be me while I’m gone. This isn’t going to work.”_

_“The world needs Superman,” the shorter self pointed out. “It doesn’t need Clark.”_

_“You don’t look like Superman either.”_

_“So I’ll use another name.” He quirked a brow at his taller self. This shorter self seemed to have a wider ranger of expressions, a more expressive face. The taller self was faintly annoyed that apparently he felt the need to run through them all in the first ten minutes. “Unless you’d like to stay here while I go to Krypton in your place?”_

_“No.”_

_The taller one was certain on that; he wanted Krytpon as desperately as his other self was indifferent. It was the only feeling that felt unchanged by the split._

_“It’s strange, though,” the other self mused. “Do you feel that? Like I lost something, but I can’t remember what it was.”_

_“I don’t feel anything,” the taller self lied. “Lets test our powers.”_

_But, whether they got the calculations wrong, or it just wasn’t possible to use black kryptonite the way they wanted, the results were the same as last time._

_The taller self had all the powers of Superman. The shorter self had none._

* * *

Lois is home before Richard. She’s been smoking; the ashtray in front of her holds the remains of a smoldering cigarette. There’s a file sitting in front of her. Her face is pale and distant. 

“Is Jason home?” Warily, Richard puts his bag down.

“The sitters,” Lois says. “We need to talk.”

“Okay.” He pulls up a chair opposite her. 

She looks him in the eye and says steadily: 

“Who are you?”

The question is like a knife in the lung. _She knows._

“Richard White. I’m your fiancée.”

“No. Richard White died in a car accident when he was five. I don’t know who you are.”

That’s when he recognises the article in front of her. The article that had given him and Kal-El the idea.

“I’m still your fiancée,” he says. “I’m still the man who’s lived with you for five years, the father of your child.”

She says nothing, just looks at him.

“Okay,” he says. “Okay. But I need to call Kal-El. This involves him too." 

* * *

_The taller self insisted on running the calculations again and again. There had to be a way to fix this, a way to share the powers between them, if only partly. Half-strength would be enough. Half the powers of Superman can do a lot of good._

_“We could try again,” the shorter self said. “Re-merge and split again.”_

_“It wouldn’t work,” the taller self snapped, annoyed because he knows he’s being placated. “The same thing would just happen, only possibly worse.”_

_“It can still work. We can just–”_

_“Please.” The taller self held up a hand. “Just… let me run the calculations a few more times, okay?”_

_To his relief, the other self did as he asked and left him alone._

_The answer to their problem is obvious. They stick to the plan, but with one minor change. The shorter self will have to be the one to go to Kyrpton. The taller self will be the one to stay and protect Earth. But the idea was unbearable. He had to go. He_ needed _to go._

_When he had run the calculations enough times to be accepting if not happy, the taller self joined the other outside. He was sitting on a gulf of crystal overlooking the Antarctic. His skin – not human precisely, but now just as vulnerable – was turning pink in the cold, and the taller self draped their cape over his shoulders._

_“Thanks,” the shorter self said. They sat side-by-side in silence, but when the shorter self spoke, it wasn’t what the taller expected._

_“We should find another identity.”_

_“What?”_

_“For me. When I go to work, I can’t be Clark Kent. I look too different.”_

_“But –” The taller self fumbles. “Shouldn’t I be the one to stay?”_

_His other self smiled._

_“I’ve been thinking. Looking at all this empty snow and ice. It’s been here for millions of years before we came. It will be here millions of years after. It gives you a sense of...”_

_“Loneliness?”_

_“Perspective.” The shorter self pulled his legs up underneath the cape’s warmth. “You want to go. I can see it in your eyes. You want it so badly, it’s killing you. So you should go.”_

_“I can’t. I have a responsibility–”_

_“Did we create the human race?”_

_“No.”_

_“Did we cripple them in some way?”_

_“No."_

_“Then you don’t have a responsibility.” The shorter self rolled his eyes, as if it was something obvious and self-evident._

_Clark had thought these things previously, before the split, but never without guilt. To hear the shorter self speak them out loud gave them a validity they'd never had before. Something loosened inside the taller self’s chest._

_“But what about you?”_

_The shorter self smiled, and there’s something sad about his expression._

_“We wanted to be human. Now I am. I’m going to try it out. Not as Clark or Superman. Just an ordinary guy.”_

_A new beginning for both of them. The taller self reflected on that thought, liking it._

_“Kal-El,” he said finally._

_“Sorry?”_

_“I’ll have to be Kal-El where I’m going.”_

_The shorter self’s smile was bright like the rising sun._

* * *

It doesn’t take Kal-El long to get there, natural disasters or no. They sit awkwardly, the three of them, this tangle that they’d created.  

“You start,” Richard says to Kal-El.

“Why me?”

“Because she’ll believe it easier coming from you. Tell her.”

* * *

_Somehow, in all their planning, Kal hadn’t given any thought to what would happen to Lois while he was gone. He hadn’t considered what would happen if she met Richard. He’d just assumed that they’d get on with their separate lives, and Lois would be waiting for Kal when he returned, ready to pick up where they left off._

_If Richard thought of it, he hadn’t raised the subject. Kal wasn’t sure it would have made a difference if he had._

_It didn’t lessen the shock when he returned to finds Lois and Richard involved. He knew he should have foreseen this, and that made him wonder what exactly he’d lost in the split._

* * *

Lois listens, stopping only to ask questions to clarify points. She smokes and neither Richard nor Kal is brave enough to stop her.

“Okay,” she says finally. “So the black kryptonite separated you. Making a… human side, and a kyrptonian side.”

“More or less,” Richard agrees, while Kal frowns. He’s not sure on this point. The schism between Clark and Superman had been clear; this separation is more subtle.  Richard makes friends more easily, grasps social cues easier, is easy to like and be liked. Kal… doesn’t.

It’s lonely being Kal. He tries not to resent Richard for it.

“Jason is my son,” Richard adds gently to Lois. “That’s what you’ve been wondering, isn’t it? But he’s mine in every sense of the word. His kryptonian DNA is just active, while mine is not.”

Lois covers her eyes, laughs softly.

“This is fucked up. This whole situation is fucked up. How is this supposed to work?”

“I live my life with you,” Richard says. “We grow old together, have great careers, wonderful kids. And after you die – if I haven’t gone already – then Kal and I will merge back together.”

“But that’s…won’t that be…” She looks at Kal. “Do you just not feel the same way as he does?”

“I do,” Kal says, but isn’t entirely sure of the answer. “When we merge I’ll have memories of our time together.”

“Will that be enough?”

That is another question he’s not sure of the answer. But  _he_ as he defines himself won’t be there and neither will Richard. It will be someone else with the memories of two lifetimes. 

“I hope so,” he says quietly. “Jason will be there, and whatever other children you have. It will be a good world for us. For him. The person we were and will be again.”

Lois wipes away a tear that has escaped.

“It isn’t fair,” she says. “This whole thing, it isn’t fucking fair. On any of us.”

“Since when is life fair?” Richard points out with a resigned smile. “None of us get everything we want, but we all get some of what we want. That’s enough for Kal and I.” He pauses and asks, a little anxiously: “Will that be enough for you?”

“It’ll have to be,” Lois snaps, but she doesn’t leave, and she lets them hold her while she cries, Richard curving his arms about her in a tight human embrace, Kal cradling her with all the delicacy of a man holding a dragonfly in his cupped hands. Stealing this fragile bubble of humanity before he must, as always, leave. 

**Author's Note:**

> And yes, I quoted Shakespeare for the title. Midsummer Night's Dream to be exact. I am such a walking cliche.


End file.
